Latex Books

I should have known better, but this book is fairly outdated, being written more that 10 years ago.
You should stick to more popular books on TeX/LaTeX such as the 'Companion' series, Guide to Latex, et alli.

I'll admit I'm just a LaTeX junkie who doesn't have a lot of time for plain TeX commands. I picked up this book because it looked as though it had some LaTeX stuff on fonts in it, and I was bored. Once again, I had recently skimmed my way through Knuth's "TeX Book" in yet another ill-fated effort to motivate myself to learn some plain TeX commands. ("\hsize" in TeX, "\hspace" in LaTeX--oh, I'll just confuse myself.) The short Appendix in this book (for which Hoenig is way too apologetic) which starts the reader out on TeX was much more fun to read, and I immediately sat down, picked up Knuth's bible to use as a reference, and re-coded some of my LaTeX documents into plain TeX, all the while muttering, "This isn't too onerous. Hmmmm, maybe in a couple of weeks I'll write my own TeX style set." The LaTeX Appendix is less successful as a primer, but that's okay because you aren't really buying this book for the appendicies. Or are you? The rest of the work deals with advanced topics regarding fonts and graphics and is set forth in lucid fashion with a good and concrete discussion of the NFSS. (Why is it that most of these TeX/LaTeX books are so vague and nebulous concerning fonts? This book proves that you can concisely write about TeX fonts without forcing the reader to read between the lines or piece together nuggets of wisdom from multiple sources.)

Sure, it's geared toward advanced TeX users, I think. But LaTeX afficianados should give it a look or at least buy it and photocopy that little Appendix to pass around to friends.

Alan Hoenig's "TeX Unbound" is a very remarkable book which differs greatly from any other TeX-related book seen so far. This is not a book about using TeX or LaTeX; it is about related topics that are equally important to good typography, namely setting up and making proper use of PostScript fonts, and creating high-quality graphics illustrations with TeX-friendly methods.

The first five chapters provide a brief but comprehensive overview about TeX, LaTeX, METAFONT and METAPOST, with particular emphasis on how it all fits together, how the production cycle works, and what kinds of files are involved. While the material is generally adequate, it might be a little terse at times, and the coverage of recent TeX distributions and Internet resources is not quite as up-to-date as one might have wished.

The second part, comprising chapters 6--10, is one of the greatest strengths of "TeX Unbound" and delves deeply into the topic of fonts. Starting fr! om the basics of setting up a standard font family, it moves on to more and more fancy and extraordinary applications, covering a wealth of material you don't find anywhere else. For example, it explains how to generate special effects fonts, or how to set up a font family containing alternate character sets or symbols. This part is rounded off by a chapter on math fonts, followed by 30 pages of examples showing how various combinations of well-known text typefaces might be used together with the few choices of math fonts currently available.

Finally, the third part of _TeX Unbound_, comprising chapters 11--15, discusses graphics applications, with particular emphasis on TeX-friendly methods such as METAFONT and METAPOST, the PSTricks package, PicTeX, or MFpic.

If there is any other book that covers a similar range of topics as "TeX Unbound", it might be "The LaTeX Graphics Companion" which, however, sets different priorities.

In the area of fonts, &! quot;TeX Unbound" is clearly the winner. While "T! he LaTeX Graphics Companion" has a good coverage of the basics, "TeX Unbound" goes far beyond that, providing the deepest and most comprehensive coverage of the topic ever published so far.

In the area of graphics, both books are about equally good in their coverage of some of the best methods, but "The LaTeX Graphics Companion" covers a wider range of graphics applications, including quite a few methods you don't find in "TeX Unbound". Nevertheless, "TeX Unbound" provides enough to get you started.

In summary, "TeX Unbound" is a great resource if you like playing with fonts (and if you have a sufficient range of typefaces at your disposal). If your primary interest lies in designing graphics illustrations, "TeX Unbound<" does a good job of what it covers, but it is not the most comprehensive reference available.

I'll agree that this book is a bit of a hodgepodge of issues on the TeX/LaTeX typesetting systems. One of the various topics covered, however, and as I recall it's also the most extensive part, is a comprehensive discussion on one of the most arcane of all TeX issues, that of fonts. Even after many years of experience as a fairly advanced end user, I realized, while reading that book, that there were, to my shame, countless details I had up-to-now failed to _really_ understand. The discussion on the use and installation of type-1 fonts alone, to my mind, is well worth the price.

The discussion on graphics, while interesting, cannot obviously be compared to the definitive work by Goosens, Rahtz et al., but it doesn't take anything away from my general appreciation: it's one of the few books on TeX/LaTeX in recent memeory that made me feel I was actually learning something I didn't know. Hoenig makes a point of using a rich, fluent, and extremely acurate prose which further enhances the reading enjoyment.

Alan Hoenig's book is a real tour-de-force when it comes to discussing TeX's arcane font-handling. If you want to learn how to install fonts for use with TeX, this is the book for you. Virtual fonts, PostScript fonts, MetaFont +... they're all covered. Want to mix-and-match new maths typefaces -- you'll find nearly 30 pages of examples (the "Rogues' Gallery").

It is quite apparent, to me anyway, that the author has a love of typography and you'll find lots of examples and hints for good "typographic style".

The book abounds with examples of what is possible -- if you think "TeX = Maths only", think again. As this book shows, TeX is about fine typesetting -- whether mathematical or straight text.

It is, as others have commented, quite an eclectic mix of topics, but, for me, one topic makes the book's price worthwhile -- the coverage of MetaPost (John Hobby's graphics programming language). MetaPost is a little "tricky" to learn, so the fact that the author devoted a whole chapter to it (Chapter 13 -- some MetaFont too), is what made me buy the book.

Personally, I would like to see more MetaPost at the expense, perhaps, of some of the more exotic font material, but that's a personal preference. The MetaPost examples are well chosen, and well explained. If this book comes out in a second edition, I'd ask the author to (at least) double the size of the MetaPost chapter -- good introductory information on MetaPost programming is very hard to find :-(. Publishers, please publish a book about MetaPost!

Overall, this is not the sort of book you'd read in one sitting, but you'll certainly find yourself dipping into it on a regular basis to make use of the wealth of ideas, tips + tricks.

Nice one Professor Hoenig, but more MetaPost, please :-)

If you have the time to view all the internet references this book has to offer, its well worth the 40 bucks. There are so many case studies, research projects, articles and much more all evolving around the latex allergy. Whether you need it for research or have a latex allergy like myself, its quite informative. Some of the articles and studies are just amazing! Please keep in mind you will need the internet to view all the articles and case studies, etc. This book mearly sums up all th sites that contain these articles, projects, etc. into links for you to type in your browser, which will then take you directly to the site.

I have looked through this 3-in-1 medical reference and found that it contained very little actual information about latex allergy. Overall, this work seemed to have more of a "cookie-cutter" approach. It seemed that it would be a good starting point for a student who was writing a research paper and needed an overview of official resources. The methodology for searching scientific abstracts and other references was useful as a starting point. But there would still be alot of work left to be done in order to access the actual information. I found the Pacific Northwest Foundation's "Latex Allergy Resource Guide" to contain much more useful information with a lower price tag.

This is a nice book for LaTeX beginners to get up to speed. Consider this an updated The LaTeX Companion, but with less coverage on different packages and written in a more tutorial-like style. Like all new books about technology, it has the advantage of being able to cover recent developments like Prosper (a package for preparing slides) and Omega (multilingual capable TeX).

My only real gripe about this book is its Chapter 10, where the authors discuss the multilingual typesetting. They include many exotic languages including Breton, Cherokee and even Esperanto! But there is zero coverage on Chinese when there are mature packages for TeXing in Chinese... (I also need to mention that there are some printing problem with this book. But those are mostly minor annoyances. Look at the errata list.)

As of this writing (April 2003), this is the book that I will recommend to new LaTeX users. And even if you already have some other books on LaTeX, this book can still be a refreshing read but I would not consider this a must-have.

Though less complete, this book is a gentler introduction to latex than the companion book. It covers less terrain but in a form that's easier to assimilate. So if you get only one book get the Compainon book. Otherwise consider this book a better primer on the latex typesetting system.

If you are a LaTeX beginner and need to learn the basics, this is probably the best way to do it. Please disregard the low scores given to this book by other reviewers who were disappinted by the level of detail. (Since I am an author of an introductory book myself, this sort of thoughtless on the part of those reviewers really irritates me. A book isn't a bad book just because you didn't read the book description and you thought it was going to be about something else.) The book has a specific purpose, as an introduction and a reference for the base LaTeX packages. It's only 288 pages (compare to The LaTeX Companion at 1120 pages, or Guide to LaTeX at 624 pages). The reference section it has is a reference for the base LaTeX software, not all of the hundreds of packages that have been written for it since 1994 when the book was published. I give it a five star rating for the purpose it was written.

If you want an exhaustive reference to all the packages, try The LaTeX Companion (or dig around on the internet). If you want an excellent introduction to basic LaTeX, the numerous tutorials on the Internet are *not* as good as this book.

There is one very important missing piece from this book - there aren't any key-by-key instructions. That's because LaTeX is used on so many different systems. So an absolute beginner might be surprised to find this information missing. Luckily, this is exactly the sort of information that is more easily found on the Internet.

I started using LaTeX (and TeX) over 15 years ago. I was dissatisfied with the way that Word handled equations (it didn't then) and sought software that would typeset my technical text and mathematics well. A friend and colleague introduced me to LaTeX. I bought a copy of Lamport's book, a PC port of the software, and started using LaTeX to set my work.

I've been using LaTeX ever since. I use it for everything I write, with the exception of a few works that require me to use Word, either because my colleagues use it or the research sponsor requires it. Recently, one of my principal research sponsors began accepting PDF format reports, so I may escape one more instance of using Word. That pleases me. But, I digress.

LaTeX is a set of macros (programs) that implement a variety of styles in the TeX language. Use of LaTeX is through a number of mark-up commands (in the same fashion that web documents are set with HTML mark-up) that are applied to textual elements of a document. Most of your LaTeX documents comprise your text. A small amount of text will be allocated to LaTeX mark-up.

This book provides the necessary instruction for learning to use LaTeX. It is written for technical users, but not computer experts. That is, Lamport expects the users of the software to have a technical background because that's the goal of the software -- to set technical documents. But he doesn't expect the reader to be a computer expert.

The book is manageable in length too. It is not so long as to require multiple sittings to work through it. Once familiar with the content, it is fairly easy to find what you are looking for in the text. The index is complete and useful. When using Lamport, I'm reminded of Kernighan and Ritchie (The C Programming Language) -- Lamport has a similar kind of easy flow to the text.

While the material is not easy, Lamport's book does a good job of conveying use of a highly technical piece of software in a readable fashion. If you are going to use LaTeX, you will want a copy of this book. You will also want a copy of Mittelbach and others LaTeX Companion (2nd edition) to help use the plethora of add-on packages available for LaTeX.

So, download a install of TeX (and LaTeX -- Google the TeX User's Group) for your computer, buy a copy of Lamport (and Mittelbach and others), read through Lamport, and start playing with LaTeX. If you write technical documents that require mathematics, you'll find LaTeX very useful. When you find yourself writing longer documents, the ability to automatically generate tables of contents, lists of figures and tables, bibliographies, and indices will make the software all the more valuable and the time invested learning to use it well-spent.

Welcome to the world of LaTeX. Don't forget to join the TeX User's Group and support development of the software!

Leslie Lamport's often cited "Latex" book is an adequate guide to this document preparation system. The problem with this book is that it's slightly too complicated (and dated) for absolute beginners (when I was learning Latex, I tried to read this book but couldn't and ended up using "The Not So Short Introduction to Latex" - available on the internet, instead), while not being detailed enough for more advanced users. At only 272, there just isn't enough there to be of much use. I also own a copy of The LaTeX Companion (Tools and Techniques for Computer Typesetting) and I find that I use that book far more often than this one. This book is adequate if there is nothing else for you to look at, but there are better books out there that you can spend your money on.

Seems to be an okay resource for people just getting started. However it is completely inadequate as a reference. Better resources are available on the internet for free.

I thought this book would at least share a few creative ideas but it's all just basic step by step tutorials on sculpting, molding / casting latex, and how to paint on latex.

I purchased the handbook because I myself am an aspiring mask maker. The book really is impressive with its series of photos taken during the creation of its featured mask (on the cover). I would've preferred all the photos to be in color, but at least they were better quality pictures than what I expected. If you are interested in making in becoming a concept designer or mask/prop fabricator, I would definitely recommend that you read this book.

This is a good book, but not what I had hoped for when I ordered. There is useful information, but I think I could've found something better had I kept looking.

Pretty good book but does not describe how to take a life cast off a person. You might need a life casting book prior to reading this one.

Ok the book arrived today. I'm shocked at the price I paid and how little information it holds. It's not very long only 42 pages. Seriously I found way better information with step by step guides online. I was really hoping this would be detailed show different styles of mask making, other than how to make a basic mold, hell it doesn't even explain life casting... This really wasn't worth the money. It's like a promotional booklet to buy their (Monster Maker) products.

This book is a very poorly written book, trying desperately to introduce you to the LaTeX world. The examples it has are detached, the whole script way of writting is not clear, it isn't fully explanatory trying to light touch all the subjects does a not so clear job. I am using LaTeX for years and I had some hard time navigating myself through the thick structure of irrelevant junk this book has. Please if you consider buying this book, you can aswell consider downloading the LaTeX instruction manual for free from the Web. The former will be a waste of money, the latter will be a non-time consuming investment!

Being a beginner at Latex I began reading with the thought
that the learning curve would be a long one. I soon found
myself writing a few simple document as soon as I read the
first 3 chapters... on the day I purchased the book. I'd say
it definately clarified a somewhat complex programming
concept for me.

This is still the best introductory text for LaTeX that I've seen. The Linux Journal review got it exactly right -- this book takes the the mystery and complexity out of LaTex while still tackling many advanced aspects of the language. It uses good examples and is actually formatted using LaTeX. As such it provides a strong visual argument for the power of LaTeX and the value of learning it. This is a great book for doing exactly that.

... users with some experience with this package will find it next to impossible to use as a reference. Bits and pieces on a topic are often scattered throughout the book. This works if you read it from beginning to end as it builds up in sophistication. On the other hand, it makes it difficult to find answers when you need to look something up. The book description is entirely accurate: an "introduction and guide to using LaTeX". The book also has some coverage of the various utilities one needs to make effective use of LaTeX (it would have saved me some time if I had it when I got started). The physical layout of the book may come as a bit of a shock (it initally struck me as uneven and unprofessional), but now that I look at it a few years later I realize this was largely due to the fact that there are a lot of examples of the output produced by the various examples (the whole point is to show you how to do things instead of selecting examples that won't interfere with the look and feel of the layout). The negative reviews this book has received are unfair since they were written by people who wanted an advanced book and bought this one ignoring its description (it quite simply isn't reasonable to say that Hondas are useless just because you're in the market for an exotic sports car). Those looking for more advanced books should consider the three "LaTeX Companion" books by Goosens and friends (these books are suitable for use as reference). The truly advanced user should have a look at "TeX Unbound" (not specific to LaTeX, but extremely useful once you are capable of reading and absorbing its contents). For the novice, I would recommend the Lamport book in addition to this one: it is thin, easy to carry around, and does a fantastic job presenting concepts (doesn't cover nearly as much ground as this book, but does a much, much better job at what it does cover).

I agree with the last two reviewers that Latex for Linux is an excellent teaching book, with simple explanations and lots of examples. The explanations may be simple but the material explained isn't---NFSS is usually considered advanced. Here, it was tucked in where it logically belonged. And made understandable.

I didn't find the typesetting ugly. I have a copy of the 2nd printing, so maybe they improved the print quality--it looks fine to me.

Paul Jackson's review wasn't very relevant. He didn't seem to have gotten far enough into the book to know the author was a her not a him. When I'm learning a new environment, I'm looking for a good, clear tutorial not a "good read" This book is a very good tutorial.

This book dates back to 1999, and since I'm writing this in 2006, that's seven years ago. Seven years is a long time for computer documentation. Virtually everything in the book is so far out of date that it's useless. The authors also didn't do a very good job of staying on topic; there are many long digressions that are neither interesting nor useful. In many cases, the authors merely give a broad-strokes outline of how to accomplish a particular task, or talk about several different approaches that have been taken by different people, without concluding with anything very helpful about how to actually accomplish the task.

I have found this book almost as useful and interesting as the LaTeX Companion. I think that it gives enough information about sharing TeX and LaTeX texts on the web, but the chapters covering pdfTeX and SGML/XML applications could be more detailed.
I have found that there is another big problem - with every day coming the information tends to get older and older. I can fully recommend buying this book today, but I am not sure if I would do it once more after half a year has passed.

If you were interested in transforming TeX into PDF, I would recommend also the LaTeX Graphics Companion, or some other book introducing the problematic of PostScript and PDF.

I am an user of latex on linux for sometime now. The possibillities are uncountable with this excellent software. This book touches on the use of tex and latex for the web. Being not that experienced with all the possibillities this book is very usefull. It is a good introduction for converting latex and tex files to documents for the web. If you can grasp all the stuff in this book you will be able to easily prepare all kinds of documents for the web and in the end save a lot of time lost with programming html yourself.
Don't expect to much examples and user details, it has an excellent index and reference list to get you started.
There is a lot of math stuff in this book, so trying to get a lot of formula's on the web this will certainly be of help. I am not into math so a couple pages could be skipped.
Concluding: want to get started with latex and the web, want to make good documents for the web on a fast and good way, this is the book for you.

This very short guidebook to latex and leather clothing care is based on experience and some education. Frankly I was disappointed by the lack of details on how to care for items and how to fix items that are often quite expensive to purchase in the first place. Also I had unanswered questions which I had hoped the book would cover such as what do you do if you want a wet or slippery feel on the inside your latex outfit? Also it would be great if Thibault had discussed way the costs of many latex and leather goods are so high for some types of clothing and tools while it is cheap for others.

This book is a great little volume which all leather and latex devotees will find indispensable. Some of it is common sense, other parts of it very useful even to those who have been looking after their items for a long time. I myself found it very useful for tips on taking care of latex which for one reason or another some of us may be too embarassed to ask about in a shop (me included!). This volume is hard to get hold of but well worth the effort - buy it now!

It could definatly use more info on making patterns - especially the tight and slinky ones like a basic catsuit. However you will learn the basics of working with latex and construction details.

as for fitting - well make a snug sloper from muslin. pants should be snug and comfy when standing and too tight for sitting. shirt should be tight as practical, just keep in mind the sleeves will have to be taken in.

when you have your sloper subtract about 5% from the horizontal measurements
and maybe 2% from the vertical ones. that will get you a decent snug fit.

take notes and be prepared to make fine adjustments.
don;t make latex garments too tight. they will fail at stress points. avoid long vertical zippers if possible. there is a huge stress point at the end of a zipper.

when preparing a zipper apply glue to it 2 or three times, letting it dry.

that covers most of the holes in the book :)

have fun

If you have ever done any basic sewing at all, this book will most likely disappoint you. While it does contain some very helpful resources for materials, and a few pointers on VERY basic construction, the majority of the book is a series of photos of the same few steps over and over again, with a few finished garments thrown in for kicks. The book has several very basic patterns which (unless by some stroke of luck you're proportioned exactly like the model) would only be useful to someone who's made or altered patterns before, but the book contains NO information on fitting techniques or altering patterns for use in latex. My opinion is that it's worth about half of the list price, and mostly for the list of materials suppliers.